Inquiring for Impact: Improving middle school outcomes in Fulton County Schools through cross-functional, inquiry-driven, continuous improvement

Abstract

Fulton County Schools, the fourth largest school district in Georgia, serves a diverse student body, with notable performance disparities between schools in North and South Fulton. Despite gains in elementary and high school outcomes, middle schools in the district showed inconsistent performance across multiple measures, leading to the perception amongst employees that the district had a “middle school problem.” The “problem” was exacerbated by organizational challenges, including barriers to collaboration, fragmented interventions, and unclear definitions of the “middle school problem” to be solved. Informed by relevant research and frameworks on continuous improvement, cross-functional collaboration, and organizing to learn, my strategic project focused on improving middle school performance and addressing organizational challenges within Fulton County Schools by establishing a cross-functional Middle School Core Team to engage in the Data Wise Improvement Process. The Middle School Core Team was tasked with engaging broader internal stakeholders to analyze a wide range of data sources to define the “middle school problem,” identify root causes at the learner and organizational level, and then develop actionable and impactful plans for improvement. Through this work, the Middle School Core Team sought to align stakeholders across departments, foster shared ownership for middle school improvement, and develop a sustainable model for collaborative inquiry and action. In the process, factors for effective, district-wide continuous improvement were uncovered, including the need to push the team into the learning zone, to foster growth and innovation; to navigate the stages of team development, from storming to performing, to build effective, high-functioning teams; and, to attend to the authorizing environment, ensuring organizational support and alignment. The implications of this project for Fulton County Schools include the importance of formally adopting a continuous improvement framework, prioritizing cross-functional stakeholder engagement to tackle complex organizational challenges, and empowering internal champions to continue and expand this work. Furthermore, the project also highlighted the need for the PK-12 education sector to match the speed of transformation with appropriate improvement processes, and to invest in job-embedded professional development on continuous improvement for school and district leaders, to truly drive change in American school systems.